


Secrets That I Keep

by ryssabeth



Series: Metropolitan Art [11]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Homeless Character, M/M, University
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-21
Updated: 2013-05-21
Packaged: 2017-12-12 12:22:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/811553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryssabeth/pseuds/ryssabeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grantaire is not a cause.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Secrets That I Keep

Without his cap, Grantaire is difficult to spot in a crowd this size (bigger than expected,  _much_  bigger than expected, especially for a Monday around the Parliament building, and yet here the people are, rising up against something that is inherently unjust—and parts of him consider bigger things, things that reach farther and spark  _movements_ ). And yet Enjolras manages, the dark head of curls bouncing up against the heads of other people as he, himself, locates Eponine and embraces her.

His jacket ( _“do you_ own _another coat?”_ ) is tied haphazardly around his waist.

Enjolras pushes through and around people, milling about and waiting for an organized mantra to rise up and drown out the city’s sounds

(He’ll get to that—he just needs a moment.)

His fingers find Grantaire’s elbow and he finds himself graced with his undivided attention, Eponine hovering in the background with an exasperated shake of her head and roll of her eyes. “Hello, hello, fearless leader,” Grantaire’s eyes flicker to the cap upon Enjolras’ head, and his eyes glitter with something bright. “How may I help you? Haven’t seen you all weekend.” (Despite Eponine’s invitation to her flat for a rousing inspirational night of drinking before this protest.)

“It’s just curiosity,” Enjolras tries to keep his tone light—because perhaps this is a misunderstanding. Grantaire hands out drawings to everyone that asks, it seems like. (He passes Jehan doodles all the time during meetings and at Eponine’s.) And, of course, just because Enjolras has seen him at the Metro 9 Station twice before means very little. Seeing him at the park means little as well—that was a weekend. (Not seeing him in class, is something else it’s—  _“—you’re not implying that the poor will gain anything more than what they already have: nothing.”_ )

“Ease your racing mind,” Grantaire grins, flicking his wrist with a flourish.

“What classes do you take?” Enjolras reaches for the hem of the cap on his head, pulling it over the tips of his ears.

(Grantaire’s eyelids flutter and the smile cracks at the edges.)

“Mythology and Sexuality, Art History from the 1800s, a class on Homer’s work, and a basic philosophy class. I’m a sucker for the allegory of the cave.” It’s a recitation that he appears to know by heart. (But the churning in Enjolras’ gut doesn’t go anywhere—it boils over.)

“What times? I just—I see you so much less than Eponine, and she takes dance electives.”

(Eponine’s eyes flicker, over Grantaire’s shoulder, and he thinks she might be going pale.)

Grantaire blinks again, and this time he looks away from Enjolras’ face, taking his bottom lip between his teeth, worrying it there in thought.

“It shouldn’t be  _that_  hard to remember if you go to class every day.” (He tries to mimic laughter and fails in that regard.) “Unless,” he adds, dropping it casually, and the murmurs of the crowd around him are pulled into the background as he flicks his gaze all over Grantaire’s face, “you don’t go to class. Unless you don’t have classes at all.”

Grantaire freezes—very literally. His eyelids have stopped at half-mast, mid-blink. Because he can never stand still, shifting weight from one foot to the other, he’s stopped doing that as well. His throat doesn’t move to swallow. His chest doesn’t move to breathe.

(Eponine is definitely pale, now.)

“ _Do_  you attend classes? Did you ever?”

The freeze is over—the ice cracking around Grantaire’s skin as he begins to stiffly move again. And he nods. “I attended one semester almost a year ago.”

“And now?”

“Now I don’t.”

“What do you do?”

(He has a protest to start, a shout to begin—and here they are, talking in whispers and murmurs.)

“I wander around,” Grantaire looks at him from under his hair.

“Do you live with Eponine?” Enjolras can feel a heat in his chest rising up toward his throat and poisoning the back of his tongue.

“No,” he says. Enjolras cannot hear the word—instead, he reads it on Grantaire’s lips. “I don’t live anywhere.”

“Why didn’t you  _tell_  me?” His voice is almost a shout with this, the anger burning him up from the inside. “Did you not _trust_  me enough? Christ.”

“What was I supposed to say? I introduced myself as a student—was I supposed to backtrack, Enjolras? What do you need me to say that will make  _you_  feel better about all of this?” Grantaire’s eyes have shuttered over—the brightness going out, hidden by something else. They don’t become clear as quickly as they have before. They don’t become clear at all.

“We’ve been talking for  _months_  now! I trusted  _you_  and your  _advice_  I—“

“Advice and  _life choices_  are two completely different things!” Eponine’s hand has attached itself to Grantaire’s jacket, her knuckles white. “Why would I tell  _you_ —“ Enjolras takes a step back, nudging against a person behind him, as if he’d been punched, his solar plexus throbbing with the soreness of a solid shot of knuckles. “Don’t look at me like that,” Grantaire wheezes, as if he, too, had been socked with all the force Enjolras has in him.

“Like  _what?_ ” Enjolras snaps back.

Grantaire rolls his shoulders, the knapsack hanging there ( _he always has it with him, he always—_ ). And his jaw is tight with the pain of a punch that was never thrown. He shuts his eyes and inhales, his nostrils flaring with the action, and his mouth says, “just don’t—don’t look at me at all, if you’re going to look like that.”

(Another punch, hard enough to send him reeling, but he stays his ground.) Enjolras can’t hear the words, has nothing to say as he dislodges himself from Eponine’s fingers, nothing still when she tries to pursue him with an expression cast at Enjolras that he doesn’t feel like reading.

He pulls the cap from his head, tucking it away in the back pocket of his jeans.

He has a protest to start.

-

Grantaire has lost Eponine in the sea of people, there to support Enjolras and the cause he’s taken up (because he’s always one for causes, Grantaire understands that now very well)—as well he should be able to. He knows this city like the back of his hand, where alleys go, where there are dead ends, where there are fences to vault over, where there are walls that need to be scaled.

(He squeezes hs eyes shut against the expression on Enjolras’ face— _anger, pity shock_.)

As Grantaire had mer Enjolras’ eyes, he saw a new label there. He’s just stepped out of his human skin—Grantaire has become a cause. He has become something to pity, something to be angry about.

He feels something pierce his heart, popping it in his chest, scattering shrapnel in his ribs. Moving—briskly, with no real goal other than to not be  _here_  anymore—hurts, the pieces of his heart digging deeper with every motion scraping viciously against his ribs, leaving no part of his chest unmarked.

(A cause, not a person.

But then again, Grantaire’s never been much of a person, either.)

His feet carry him around, his brain shutting on and off in periodic panic (it feels a lot like his only semester at university— _hardly a person at all, amount to something with these specialisations, I dare you_ ) before he stops at the small church, down the road from the Notre Dame. (It is now that he realises his legs are sore from walking, and the sun is inching toward noon.)

He pushes in the heavy doors (and the church is much more quiet when it’s not pouring down rain), heading toward the pew on the left-hand side, closest to the altar. He tosses down his knapsack, stretching out along the pew, pillowing the backpack behind his head.

And he considers the angels on the ceiling (still too Western-European for Grantaire’s liking), breathing in and breathing out, hoping that the shattered pieces inside him drop away or stop hurting.

They don’t.

“It’s a Monday,” a voice says, coming from behind the altar, and Grantaire turns his head to see an older man coming from a door that presumably leads to this’s small chapel’s office. “I hardly see people on Mondays. How may I help you, my child?”

“I don’t need help,” Grantaire says—and guilt bites at the wounds that the shrapnel leaves, because this man hasn’t hurt him. “And I’m not your kid.”

“Certainly, as a kid is a baby goat, which you are definitely not.”

Grantaire snorts, and even that hurts him. ( _A cause, not a person, don’t look at me like that._ ) “I don’t—when do churches close?”

The old man hums, flipping through the large Bible on the altar, his eyes persistently glancing at Grantaire, who doesn’t look away. “Five,” the man answers. “And if you do decide you need to talk with me, I’ll be in my office.”

“You—“ (he doesn’t know what he wants to say, cuts it off and starts again), “you should think about getting your ceiling repainted.”

The man looks up at the angels and he smiles, just slightly. “I’ve been thinking the same thing. Good day to you, son.”

Grantaire doesn’t go to the office. It still hurts to breathe.

But the shepherd of the church lets him stay until six, when hunger grabs his stomach and twists and when he can’t stay under the eyes of the angels anymore.

(They look at him with pity—and pity isn’t something he needs.

 _Don’t look at me like that._ )


End file.
